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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Feb 10, 2010 - 11:34am PT
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The primary threat to most of the National Parks in this day and age is the NPS's apparent mandate to facilitate tourism at any cost and they do this through road construction and maintenance. I have worked for the Federal government (incl. the NPS) as an archaeologist for 18 years, so I don't need any civics lessons, but will someone please tell me why we can't just get rid of the f!@#ing cars!?!?!!
Because the NPS and the very idea of National Parks need an electoral and economic constituency. The original political will to create an NPS depended on the efforts the railroads and others in the tourist industry. And the Route 66 cmapaigns of the 1950s helped to marshal public support for the Wilderness Act of 1964.
Without the support of a large chunk of the electorate-- and local campaign-contributing, lobbyist-wielding, lawyered-up business owners and special interest groups --the Parks will disappear. And for the last century, that constituency has been the folks who drive their families to the park, and the service industries that support them. Remove the roads and you remove a lot of support for the very idea of a Park, especially in local districts.
The Valley is one of the best PR resources the NPS has, when it comes to "everyday" voters.
As for wilderness, that horse left the barn more than a century ago. As an archeologist, you probably know better than most folks on this board, the degree to which the NPS forced out local Natives (and removed an array of squatters and structures) to make the place feel more "wild."
Let's be real: The Valley is a sacrifice zone. Restrict access and you'll push those cars and their occupants out into King's Canyon, Sequoia, the 108 corridor, and other areas that are currently buffered by the mosh pit we know and love as the Valley.
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MVM
Trad climber
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Feb 11, 2010 - 12:47am PT
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KLK: True, true, true. Everything you say is true. However, I am also a car-driving constituent, but one that can appreciate the need to protect areas that I may never go to. There are many people like me as well (most likely you are also a car-driving, tree-hugging, nature freak) and we shouldn't underestimate our strength to accomplish what is best for the resource. David Brower (a climber) had as much to do with the passage of the Wilderness Act as any advertising campaigns. How do we know it won't pass unless someone suggests it? I am sure we could come up with some pretty good fiscal reasons to ban cars. E.g. The crazy-ass road into Mesa Verde NP? It costs nearly $1,000,000 per mile to MAINTAIN. Anyway, there are only 100 Senators who vote on this stuff and a couple of hundred members of the House.
In the end, I guess it really doesn't matter: sooner rather than later, the Earth is gonna swallow up our little plague-of-a-species and everything will be back to normal. Half Dome will far out-last our sorry ass species and that sorry ass cable route. Time to go climbing and let the NPS attempt to justify their existence by implementing more useless regulations. And I say that with love, Parkies.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Feb 11, 2010 - 12:31pm PT
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All that? Over some cables and poles on the side of Half Dome to keep open an one hundred year old route?
No-- personally, I don't really care and I think that the short-term, at least, is already in place.
The cables debate is just an opening into a bigger issue about land management that I work on, namely the problems we face with "wilderness" management.
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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 11, 2010 - 01:06pm PT
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klk,
What's your take on having free permits right there at the cables, as I outlined in the other thread?
Certainly some people would shine this system, just as they will the other permits, just as people dirtbag illegally, etc. But this is free and simple and might pair well with the via ferrata approach.
I also liked monolith's idea of needing no permit at all if you are on the summit before 9am.
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